Going Forward

This chapter analyses some of the key themes and issues that emerge from the review of research and development presented in the previous chapters. It goes on to examine issues relating to research methodologies, exploring the question of how educational informatics might effectively be progressed. A parallel is drawn between broad dimensions of difference relating to perspectives and approaches observed in this review, and dimensions of difference observed in relation to cognitive styles. These differences have implications for the nature and level of what is considered acceptable evidence on which to progress. They may also underlie conflicts sometimes experienced between proponents of different approaches to research constituting, in their extreme form, the phenomenon of paradigm.wars. The model of learning developed throughout the previous chapters is further extended to include key aspects of these differences, and to take into account the need for dialectic exploration of the nature and causes of disagreements and differences.

ICT Developments

Information seeking and resource discovery, for which library/information science researchers and developers have devised the techniques and approaches introduced in the previous chapter, may be engaged in by teachers seeking information and learning resources that they can reuse or reconfigure in their own teaching. Resource discovery may also be engaged in by learners themselves—either within the context of a formal course of study in which they are given the opportunity to seek out information and resources for themselves, or as autonomous self-regulated learners operating outside the context of any formal course. Library/information science is concerned with the seeking and discovery of information and resources in both of these contexts. As educationists have developed information and computer technology (ICT)-based approaches to learning design and teaching (which will be introduced in Chapter VI), so library and information scientists have developed ICT-based approaches to enabling and facilitating effective information seeking and resource discovery. These approaches—including ICT-based standards—form the focus of the present chapter.

Library and Information Science

A key theme of Chapter III was the need to be able to seek out information and resources for oneself. Learners require this ability whether working in formal education (especially if engaged in project- or inquiry-based learning) or as autonomous learners outside any formal educational context. However, teachers and learning designers are themselves learners. They also need to be able to find information and resources to help them teach and design the learning resources, activities, and experiences of others.

Real World Learning

This chapter focuses on limitations in our knowledge of learning, learning design, and the design of information and computer technology (ICT)-based learning support systems. We need to overcome these limitations in order to enable us to improve our own learning, the design of other people’s learning, and the design of learning support systems that will work effectively in the real world. The chapter starts by focusing on some of the problems besetting research into humans, and the need to recognise the serious limitations of knowledge derived from such research when it comes to practical application in real world teaching and learning. It explores, as a mini case study, a notion that is central to much educational informatics research and development, namely personalisation, and within this, a construct that a number of researchers and developers have used and are using as a driver of adaptive behaviour—learning style. The chapter goes on to present another mini case study in which the applicability of a well established and influential theoretical framework for learning design in higher education—Laurillard’s conversational. framework—is evaluated in a real world blended learning context.

Educational Informatics Systems

Educational informatics is defined within this book as: The.development,.use,.and.evaluation.of.digital.systems.that.use.pedagogical.knowledge. to.engage.in.or.facilitate.resource.discovery.in.order.to.support.learning.. Figure 91 shows how the previous chapters of this book have focused on each of the pillars on which educational informatics is founded. The nature of learning was explored in Chapters I and II, before we moved on to focus on pedagogical matters in Chapter III and resource.discovery in Chapter IV. Chapters V and VI focused on digital.systems, concentrating on information and communication technology (ICT) aspects of pedagogy and resource discovery respectively. The reader is referred to the Preface for a more detailed explanation of this definition.

Learning

The previous chapter sketched some of the basic intellectual processes entailed in learning that are common to us all. However, different individuals may use these same basic processes in very different ways and may bring to them very different types and levels of prior knowledge. Certain stylistic differences in the way people go about learning are relatively value free. That is, adopting one style rather than another is not necessarily better or worse, although qualitatively different types of knowledge may result from relatively strong biases (see, for example, the global and analytic information processing styles described later on). However, certain other differences in the way information is processed are more value laden in that they are associated with different types and levels of resultant knowledge. Such types and levels of knowledge may be considered, from certain perspectives, to be of higher or lower quality (see, for example, the deep and surface approaches to studying described later on).

Educational Informatics Systems

This chapter concentrates on a number of educational informatics systems that focus explicitly on social, collaborative, and community-based aspects of learning. These aspects arguably align better with the social and knowledge creation perspectives on learning introduced in Chapter III. In some ways, the systems presented here bring into relief some of the limitations of the relatively individual-focused approaches introduced in the previous chapter. Ultimately, however, educational informatics is essentially a social collaborative enterprise, since one of its key defining features is a concern with the discovery, sharing and reuse of learning resources within and between learning communities. The difference between systems included in this and the previous chapter is relative rather than absolute, relating to the degree of emphasis on collaborative features built into the systems.

Education

We have examined the basic processes underlying learning, and differences in the way in which these basic processes may be deployed by different individuals. We have also explored differences in the knowledge structures of different individuals, in terms of the prior types and levels of knowledge that they bring to bear on a given learning situation. This chapter explores the art and science of learning design and teaching. These represent the reverse side of the learning coin, and entail designing, delivering, and assessing learning activities and experiences in response to individual learners’ needs for knowledge, taking into account differences in their styles and levels of learning as discussed in the previous chapter.

Learning

Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge, which is an active process and operates at both individual and social levels. This book explores both, but this first chapter focuses on the individual in terms of the basic mental processes entailed in transforming information into knowledge—in other words, learning. In doing so, it introduces a number of themes which will recur throughout the book. These key themes include the notion of tentative.theories used to generate themes by which integrate otherwise fragmented entities become integrated. This process underlies the construction of meaning at all levels—from basic comprehension through critical thinking to creativity. Complex meaning construction can be seen as the generation, testing, and refinement of such tentative theories, education being concerned with providing optimal support to learners in engaging in these activities.

ICT Developments

This chapter is the second of two chapters that explore developments in information and communications technology (ICT). This chapter discusses ICT tools and standards developed to support learning design and teaching. Such developments greatly affect the learning media and modes available for deployment by learning designers. These may enable existing learning designs to be delivered in different ways. However, they may also enable the development of new learning designs. The chapter begins by reviewing developments relating to computer-assisted learning (CAL), with particular emphasis on intelligent and adaptive tutoring systems that incorporate aspects of artificial intelligence and the use of reasoning mechanisms and knowledge representations to support learning. It goes on to discuss learning environments and management systems, and the move to interoperability, sharing, and reuse, which closely interrelates with resource discovery as discussed in the previous chapter.